The Book's Purpose

• Provide a book for those who need a fresh perspective of Jesus
• Challenge Christians to be open and flexible as they explore what it means to walk with God
• Articulate a “repainted” Christian worldview and encourage others to contribute to the discussion
• Encourage Christians to live to their fullest God-given potential

The Book's Message

Beware of those who claim to have figured out life or arrived at the most accurate set of theological beliefs. All truth is God’s truth. But His truth is dynamic and compels every believer to keep seeking and asking questions so that they can reach a fuller understanding of what truth is.

Through the centuries the Church has grossly misrepresented the gospel message. However, when operating fully on all cylinders according to God’s design, she becomes a force that hell itself cannot withstand. The Church is still a great idea. She will keep moving forward, helping people learn better how to connect with God and with one another.

Introduction: Repainting Our Faith

Located in the basement is a Velvet Elvis, a painting purchased on the side of the road. What is most amusing about this Velvet Elvis is the artist’s signature on the bottom left, which reads simply “R.” The initial suggests that when one is this great of a painter, a full name is not needed. Imagine “R.” announcing that he had finished his masterpiece of Elvis and that no other renderings would be necessary. What a crazy notion! We know that art must continue to explore, expand, and shape fresh perspectives. Followers of Jesus through the centuries also have recognized that faith must keep exploring what it means to walk with God and one another. Jesus challenged people to rethink their faith while inviting them to live up to the potential for which God created them.

Changing Times—Unchanging God

Times change, but God never does. As the world shifts around us, we keep our faith vibrant only when we morph, innovate, and let go of anything that prevents us from becoming all God intended us to be, including our preconceived notions about Jesus.

In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther questioned the painting the church had demonstrated to the world. He stressed that God’s grace could not be purchased. He longed for the common man to have his own copy of the Bible and taught that all people have a divine calling, not just career priests.

His views were revolutionary for his day. People listened and things changed. Scores of people connected with God in ways they had never experienced before.

Luther is just one example among many others who repainted the faith. They never stopped thinking. They ridded themselves of unnecessary layers while rediscovering key elements that had been lost. The churches Luther confronted also began their own processes of rethinking and repainting. The process continues today.

Reformed or Reforming?

Referring to the process of growth and change, Luther’s contemporaries did not use the term reformed. They used the term reforming. They understood that their repainting would one day need to be revisited. We must keep reforming, not just cosmetic stuff like graphics and lighting, but our basic beliefs about God, salvation, Jesus, the Bible and the future.

Each generation must repaint the faith and not just keep making copies of the same painting. Many Christians are comfortable with the existing language, methods, churches, and beliefs. We should be grateful for them. But this book is for those who long for a fresh look at Jesus and desire to experience new understandings of the Christian faith. What we discover might not be brand new. It might just need dusting off and reclaiming.

Lessons from a Trampoline

Logging many hours with my boys on our trampoline has taught me some important spiritual lessons. God now makes more sense to me.

Everybody Has Faith

Some people believe we exist because of a divine Creator, while others believe we exist by random chance. Both views represent faith perspectives. It is interesting that those who accept the creation view are often considered closed-minded. But in reality the closed-minded person is the one who will not entertain the possibility that there is more to life after our earthly existence.

Everybody has faith. But faith in what or faith in whom? Those are the real questions.

Everybody follows somebody. Someone may claim to be a free-thinker and influenced by no one. But that is not possible. The way we think results from a myriad of influences, including what we learn from parents, teachers, and religion. In this sense we all are believers.

Trampoline Springs

Think about doctrine as the springs on a trampoline. When you jump, you understand how important the springs are. They are not the main ingredient; but they are essential. The springs (beliefs) are not God. They are statements which represent our beliefs about God. They help us understand the main point. Take the doctrine of the Trinity, for example. For centuries, people jumped without it. But eventually, this truth became central to our Christian faith. It stretches and flexes as we discuss it and question it. Even though the Trinity helps us understand who God is, we still cannot comprehend it fully.

Studying doctrine is essential; but we must remember that doctrine is the means to a greater end. The springs on a trampoline work only when they serve a greater cause. If they become the focal point, then something is terribly wrong.

Brickworld Religion

A lecturer on creation asserted if one denies that God made the world in a literal sixday, twenty-four-hour period, then he essentially has denied that Jesus ever died on the cross. What a bizarre leap of logic! His faith is not like a trampoline but like a brick wall. Remove one brick, and the entire wall crumbles.

I hold firmly to the historic Christian faith, including the virgin birth, the Trinity, and the inspiration of Scriptures. But if faith falls completely apart when one of the springs is questioned, then it must not have been all that strong in the first place. God is much bigger than the sum total of our doctrinal beliefs.

When you live in the brickworld, you spend a lot of time defending the wall and telling others how right you are and how wrong they are. You don’t have to defend a trampoline. You simply invite others to join you and jump.

Jesus invites all of us to jump even before we have everything figured out. And it’s okay for us to bring our questions with us. Raw, honest vulnerable questions are central to our faith.

Fresh Look at the Scriptures

The Bible is a mysterious book. Its depths can never be fully understood. It encourages, inspires, and provokes.

Who Decides the Meaning?

It is a no-brainer to say that ethnic cleansing is evil. Yet in the Bible God orders His people to wipe out whole nations, and He promised His presence while they did so. How does an honestminded person deal with such stories?

The Bible affects me like no other book when I read it. Yet it nauseates me when people use the Bible to support their own presupposed beliefs. The Bible apparently can mean many different things to many people. Apparently, it can be made to say whatever we want it to say. Who’s right? Who decides the Bible’s meaning?

The Rabbi’s Yoke

The ancient rabbis studied the Scriptures to determine what they meant and how they were to be applied in daily life. Regarding the Sabbath command, they determined what was allowed and what was prohibited on the holy day. This list of rules was called the rabbi’s yoke. People followed a particular rabbi based on how accurately they believed he interpreted God’s law.

Periodically, a new rabbi appeared on the scene teaching a new yoke, a fresh way of interpreting the Torah. Two other rabbis would lay hands on him to affirm the validity of his authority. When Jesus was baptized, John was publicly validating Him. The voice of God from heaven was the second validation. Religious leaders constantly questioned His authority.

Jesus came with new teachings. “You have heard it said…but I tell you….” The rabbis used the term “binding and loosing” to refer to the process of permitting and forbidding and interpreting. Binding meant something was forbidden. Loosing meant something was permitted.

Binding and Loosing

Jesus encouraged this continuous process of determining how to live the Scriptures each day. In Acts 15, His followers had to determine if non-Jewish believers must abide by Jewish practices. The same process compels us today to work in community to determine how we should apply biblical teachings. But herein lies much of the problem. God’s Word was always read in community, thereby providing checks and balances. The biblical writers probably never conceived that their words would be read alone by individuals.

Even though we can read the Bible individually, our conclusions are still based on our preconceived understandings and handed-down opinions from others. All of us have been affected by outside influences.

How many times have you heard a believer say, “I just believe the Bible,” as if he interprets it without any biases? “Everybody’s understanding of the Bible rests on somebody’s binding and loosing.” And we must be honest about this truth.

The Bible~Our Story

To bind and loose implies that the Bible is alive. In the story of Adam and Eve, what is the greatest truth? That the sin happened, or that it happens? Isn’t their story our story? One can never exhaust the full meaning of a biblical text because it is living and active.

Every text of Scripture is like a gem with seventy faces. Each story is filled with life and teaches us about our lives today. You can never exhaust the full meaning and application of any passage because each time you turn the gem, you receive a fresh story.

It is time to throw away the old cliché that the Bible is our instruction manual. People usually don’t read instruction manuals. The Bible is more than a book of data. It is God interacting in real people’s lives through poems, stories, and letters.

Discovering Truth

All of us have been caught up in those experiences that extend beyond human words. Whether it is the birth of a baby, a moving concert, or an experience with nature, an ordinary moment becomes infused with significance, hope, and meaning. When “something” ignites within us, could it actually be “Someone”? We need a faith that embraces these moments, not denies them.

The Bigger Picture

On a trip to Rwanda, we were hiking through the slums with Pauline, who spent her free hours caring for those who were about to die from AIDS. What overwhelmed me was not the pain and suffering of these victims as much as the compassion that Pauline demonstrated. Experiences like these make me realize that I am standing on holy ground.

It is not just in the beautiful moments that we glimpse the bigger picture. It is also in the gut-wrenching moments of anguish and pain that we grasp that something is going on around us that runs far deeper than we realize.

The Jewish prophets wrote about these experiences. They understood that something bigger was holding everything together. They spoke of the whole earth being filled with the glory of God. The word glory means significance or weight. In other words, the whole earth is soaked with the presence of God.

God is never somewhere else. He is always present. When Jacob awoke from his dream, he noted that God was present without him being aware of it. In Romans 1 Paul teaches that even those who don’t know God are able regularly to do what is right because God has made truth available to everybody.

Ultimately, all truth comes from God. Therefore, as a Christian, “I live with the understanding that truth is bigger than any religion and the world is God’s and everything in it.”

The Truth Dilemma

We all know people who grew up with strong, religious roots but walked away from those roots when they attended college. Take, for example, the young lady, raised in a Christian home, who has not been prepared for the intellectual challenges she will face in the college classroom. She has a dilemma on her hands: Jesus or intellectual honesty?

Many students throw out their whole faith when they experience truth in different kinds of ways because they believe it is an either-or choice. Their faith in a box has been shattered. What they need is a faith that is big enough to handle these challenges.

Truth comes in many forms and through many disciplines, even those outside our traditional faith. But we must keep in mind that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” If He is the truth, then any form of truth, regardless of where it is found, fits within the context of faith. Jesus encouraged us to embrace all truth no matter where it is discovered.

“Christian”: Noun or Adjective

I’m a little leery when someone uses Christian as an adjective, as in Christian music, Christian movie, or Christian political group. The first time the word appears in the Bible is in Acts where it is used as a noun to describe those first followers of Jesus. They were called Christians because they devoted themselves to a lifestyle that reflected the teachings of Jesus.

Tacking “Christian” onto a noun limits the truth. Something can be referred to as “Christian” and yet not be good or true. For example, is it possible that a “Christian” film could actually be a terrible movie?

For the Christian everything is sacred. To be a Christian means that one throws himself fully with great passion into whatever he is doing. It is impossible for a Christian to hold a secular job because if he is following Jesus, then his work becomes sacred.

Healing the Soul

We planted Mars Hill Church in 1999 with a dream of creating a fresh, revolutionary way of doing church.

The Mars Hill Story

My wife Kristen and I dreamed about what a congregation could be like if it were stripped away of all its fluff and hype and filled with people passionate about experiencing God. We wanted no signs or any other kind of advertising. We wanted people who wanted to find us.

What was strange was that on the first Sunday, traffic jams surrounded the location and more than 1,000 showed up. More came the next week and the next week. I dislike playing the numbers game, but doing so is important to my story. Within six months, we were holding three services with over 4,000 attending. We had no vision statement and no demographics. For the first year we studied from the book of Leviticus. Two years later we had bought a mall and were drawing 10,000 every Sunday.

The Dark Side of Success

The pace of leading Mars Hill was unreal and unhealthy. There is a big difference between dreaming of a stripped-down church and actually leading such a monster. In between services one Sunday I escaped to a storage closet to be alone. In my mind I wanted to bail. I couldn’t survive the pace any longer.

In fact, I wasn’t even certain I still wanted to be a Christian. I was exhausted, full of doubt, and had nothing else to say. At that moment I decided I had to make some changes in my life or else I could not survive. I decided that I had to be completely honest with myself and with others about my journey. The decision proved to be extremely painful; but it was also freeing~ very freeing.

God’s Restoration

In the book of Numbers, God told His people to attach tassels to the corners (Heb., kanaf) of their garments as a visible reminder to live the way He created them to live. Malachi 4:2 uses the same Hebrew word to refer to the coming Messiah with healing in his wings (kanaf). Legend grew that there would be healing powers in the tassels of the Messiah’s garment. (Recall the story in Luke 8 where the sick woman grabbed the edge of Jesus’ cloak and was healed.)

Our salvation certainly includes the legal transaction of being delivered from sin, but it includes so much more. We’re talking about living in complete harmony with God, a whole new way of life. The cross represents what Jesus did for us and in us. We need Jesus’ healing from the cross every day. Therefore, the cross is not just about forgiveness; it is also about restoration.

Kill the Superpastor

Most pastors long for the approval of others. They say yes to every request. Why do they take on so much? To get to the bottom of this issue requires the peeling away of multiple layers of hurt and pain. For healing to take place, everything must be brought to the surface.

It is very easy to hide our own sin and pain whenever we are busy helping our flock deal with their issues. We make ourselves available 24/7. We don’t miss a birthday or a hospital visit. The more we play this superpastor game, the less pleased we become with ourselves. There is a cure to this sickness~kill the super-pastor. Whatever it takes, he must be killed…now!

Taking a Sabbath can bring healing to the many layers of the soul. Sabbath does not refer to a particular day of the week as much as it refers to how we live every day. Superpastors believe they are happiest when they are working nonstop. Reaping the benefits of a Sabbath may not come readily because of years of superpastor habits. But it won’t take long to see what a difference a Sabbath makes.

"Come, Follow me."

Before all the bold claims He made about Himself in the Gospels, Jesus was simply a Jewish man brought up by a Jewish family who worshipped a Jewish God in a Jewish culture. When we consider what it meant to be a Jewish rabbi, we can more fully understand what He meant when He said, “Come, follow Me.” Education the Jewish Way From the age of six up, every Jewish child was taught the Torah. Education was not a luxury; it was the key to their survival. This first level of education, called Bet Sefer, lasted until the child was about ten years old. Most likely, the children learned in the synagogue, taught by the local rabbi. By age ten, most could quote from memory the entire Torah. Have you noticed in the Gospels how often Scripture is quoted and everyone seemed to know the text? After age ten, some students began to distance themselves from the other students. These advanced students moved to the next level of education called Bet Talmud and lasted until about age fourteen. The other students went back to learn the family business. By the end of this level of study, most students had completely memorized the rest of the Old Testament. In this level the students also learned the oral traditions and the art of questioning.

The Rabbi’s Call

By age fifteen most children had returned home to the family trade. Only the best of the best continued their education. These students applied to become one of the rabbi’s disciples. The objective was not just to learn from the rabbi, but to become just like him. This level of education was called Bet Midrash.

The rabbi did not accept just anyone. He grilled the applicant with questions. He wanted to make sure that the student had what it took to be a disciple. If he thought the student could become like him, he would say, “Come, follow me.”

These new disciples then left their families and followed the rabbi everywhere he went. They gave up their whole life to be devoted to him.

At the age of thirty is when most rabbis began their public teaching and training of their own disciples. Jesus appeared on the scene at thirty to begin teaching and calling His disciples. He didn’t call the educated ones who had gone through the three levels of schooling. He called those who weren’t good enough to meet the typical rabbinical standards.

Peter and Andrew left their fishing business because someone said to them, “Come, follow Me.” Here was a rabbi who believed that they could become just like Him.

Later on Jesus told them that He was going to build a new community and that hell itself would not be able to stop it. Imagine how His disciples must have processed this bold statement.

Many times the disciples frustrated Jesus. He wasn’t frustrated because the men were incapable but because they weren’t living up to their capabilities. He had so much faith in them that He left the future of the movement in their hands. He had an incredibly high view of people. He actually thinks that we all can be like Him.

My True Identity

We’ve all experienced guilt and shame when a preacher reminds us we aren’t spiritual enough because we aren’t praying or reading the Bible enough. In other words, if we just did more, then we would be more spiritual. And if we experienced enough guilt, then we would be motivated to do more.

Jesus never used this kind of strategy. In fact, His greatest anger was directed towards those who weighed people down with shame and guilt.

Transformed and Remade

Early Christians insisted that something profound happens at the very core of our being when we become Christians. Something within us dies, something so significant that we can speak about the old man or the old woman that we used to be. No matter how many times the old self surfaces, it is still dead.

Christ gives me a new identity which prompts me to keep dying to the old way of living so that I can keep living in the new. I have taken on a new identity. I am a new creation. I am being transformed and remade. When God looks at me now, He sees His own holy Son Jesus Christ.

Even though I’m still a sinner, God sees me as holy~ not in the future but right now. Therefore, I don’t have to keep beating myself up when I let Him down. What God says about me, I must say about myself. Shame should never play a role in my Christian experience.

Bringing Heaven to Earth

We can choose to live within the realm of heaven, how God created us to live. Or we can choose to live within the realm of hell, an existence that is out of sync with how God created us to live.

When Jesus talked about these two realms, He primarily emphasized present reality and not what happens after we die. So the key question is not how a person goes to heaven when he dies. The question is how he brings heaven to earth.

As a believer I must do all I can to oppose and correct all the hells (e.g., suffering, injustice, poverty) on earth. In Matthew 25, Jesus stressed that the one who ends up in heaven at the final judgment is the one who clothes the naked and feeds the poor. The one who ends up in hell is the one who neglects the needy and hurting.

All through the Bible we read about the God who longs to be on earth with His people. What happens at the end of time? God establishes His kingdom on earth. Consequently, the mark of a true follower is not someone who wants to escape to heaven forever, but one who looks forward to spending eternity in the new heaven that will come to earth.

Totally Accepted

Jesus’ first messages stressed our need to repent because His kingdom was near. Repent suggests our need to return to be the people God originally created us to be.

Because of sin, the image of God is scarred within each of us. We have a hard time believing that we are totally forgiven and accepted; so we pursue God by pushing ourselves and doing all we possibly can to repair the scarred image.

The search for achieving God’s acceptance will never end until we surrender the search and begin trusting. We must trust that God is already putting our lives back together. We must come to the point where we recognize that we are totally accepted. We must embrace our true identity in Christ and allow this new awareness to transform our lives completely.

God's Dream for the World

John’s record of the ressurection portrays the backdrop of a garden. Jesus was buried in a garden tomb. On Resurrection Day, Mary mistook Jesus for a gardener. His garden imagery is not coincidental. He intentionally draws a parallel to the Garden of Eden. The new Adam is reclaiming and renewing God’s plans for the world.

God’s Good Creation

Over and over again, Genesis uses the word “good” to refer to every aspect of His creation. He gave land the ability to reproduce vegetation. He also gave each creature the ability to reproduce and multiply.

Then God put man and woman in the center of creation, connecting them with everything He made, and told them to manage it all. At the very core God made Adam and Eve environmentalists.

We have a choice when it comes to our relation with creation. We can work in harmony with God or we can use it for our own purposes. Adam’s and Eve’s choice to eat the forbidden fruit was not just a matter of disobedience. Their decision changed the direction of everything. So the early chapters of the Bible begin with unlimited possibility and end with ruptured chaos.

Creation Renewed

God plans to restore the world to a design that reflects its original intent. Jewish people did not talk about the day they would spend eternity in heaven. They longed for the day when God would come to the earth at the end of time and put everything back together. The cross is not just about saving the human soul; it is about God’s desire to save all things.

Resurrection Impact

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians depicts the resurrection as the “firstfruits.” In Jewish culture that was a way of saying, “Hold on because more is coming.”

A Succession of Caesars

ruled the Roman world. Each claimed to be the savior of the world. Caesar Augustus claimed to be the son of God who had come to restore creation. People worshipped him as their divine savior and regularly used the slogan, “Caesar is Lord.”

Understanding this cultural background sheds fresh light on why early Christians suffered so much persecution. One of their favorite sayings was, “Jesus is Lord.” Such a proclamation would have flown in the face of every Roman citizen. Christians took the vernacular reserved for the Caesar and used it to recognize their own Lord~Jesus Christ.

Early Christians did not go out of their way trying to prove the resurrection. Why? Because making such a claim was no big deal since everyone’s god had claimed the same. Instead, they invited people to join their unique experience of the resurrection community. They passed their faith to the next generation who passed it to the next generation and so on through today. Now our generation must demonstrate to others how a group of people completely surrendered to God, not drawing a lot of attention to themselves, can actually change the world.

The Church Lives On

The Church, the bride of Christ, remains a mystery. In spite of all the times she has veered off course, she continues to survive. When she is on track, serving and loving those around her, there is no greater force in the world. But when she reverts to ways God never intended, she sinks to the lowest of lows.

But make no mistake. The Church will live on. She is indestructible. Jesus noted that the gates of hell could not stand against her. Others will try to manipulate and control her. Her opponents will pass on, but she will keep rolling through the ages connecting people with God and with one another.